


come out into the sun now, love

by 143 (1432)



Series: i only love it [2]
Category: EXO (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Tattoo Artist, Anxiety, Anxiety Attacks, Cigarettes, Depictions of Distress, M/M, Panic Attacks
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-29
Updated: 2016-02-29
Packaged: 2018-05-23 20:43:03
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6129475
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/1432/pseuds/143
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Zitao isn't anything like Lu Han. And that's exactly what Sehun needs.</p>
            </blockquote>





	come out into the sun now, love

**Author's Note:**

> Author's Notes: I don't even know, I just wanted everyone to see why I paired these two together in the end of my fic. This can't be read as a stand alone.

Zitao isn't anything like Lu Han. And Sehun couldn't be happier.

Zitao isn't anything like Lu Han. Except, maybe that he smokes, but only cigarettes. Sehun likes to share them, will get one for him and light it, take a long drag before handing off. It's not that he really likes the cigarettes, it's more of a habit, but Zitao always smiles at him when he does it. And Sehun couldn't be happier.

Zitao isn't anything like Lu Han. Where Lu Han had been too pale, almost sickly thin, Zitao is a healthy rich tan and strongly muscled. Sehun loves to just touch him, to feel the defined muscles of his abdomen and the thick muscle of his thighs, and leave his skin kiss bruised. It's his favorite thing to do, but he's careful to keep the marks to places that are normally hidden. And Sehun couldn't be happier.

Zitao isn't anything like Lu Han. Lu Han's skin was clean and clear beside the odd scar here and there, but Zitao has tattoos. Straight, dark lines on his shoulder form a wolf's head and there are more down his back; thin lines make a map across his skin. Sehun is infatuated with them, rubs his back and traces the patterns. And Sehun couldn't be happier.

 

 

With a sheet tangled around their legs, they lay together and Sehun watches Zitao smoke, smiles and traces the line of his cheekbone when he inhales. Sehun pulls his legs up away from Zitao's, out of the tangle of the sheet and he moves to straddle him. Zitao smirks at him and holds his hip with one hand.

"What are you doing up there?"

"Enjoying the view," Sehun whispers, leaning forward and giving him a slow look up and down. He rocks his hips, taking Zitao by surprise.

"Is your appetite still not satisfied?" It's only teasing, although Zitao has said before that it's hard to keep up with Sehun sometimes. He shakes his head, bracing himself on Zitao's shoulders, rutting down against his lower stomach.

Still smoking his cigarette, casually, as if nothing was happening, Zitao allows Sehun to grind against him, rut his hips forward until his cock is hard again. Zitao reaches to touch him and Sehun instantly goes still, whining as fingers wrap around the base of his cock and give a gentle squeeze.

"Is your cock always hard? It seems to be."

Heat rises into Sehun's cheeks, spreads down over his shoulders and chest; his cock gives a jerk at the words. Zitao is pleased with Sehun's reaction and reaches for the lube on the bedside table, takes his hands away from Sehun's cock to wet his hands.

Zitao wraps both hands around Sehun's cock and works them together and Sehun gasps, pinching his eyes shut. An array of emotions play across Sehun's face, one so pinched— and his whines so high, so tight— that Zitao thought his grip might've been a bit too tight, but he guessed it wasn't when Sehun rocked into the touch.

"Zitao!" His gasp is accompanied by a shift of weight as he leans forward and braces himself with a hand on Zitao's shoulder, gripping it tightly. Along Zitao's hips and sides, Sehun's legs tense, grip him tightly and a strained cry is ripped from him as he comes for the second time.

He holds his breath until the brunt of the pleasure is over and then he slumps forward, panting, rushed and pitched, body shivering all over as it works through him.

"Fuck," he whispers, laying forward with his legs still tucked up under himself. Zitao laughs at him, but Sehun has no shame, laughs with him.

 

 

Sehun's not quite sure what his next novel will be. It won't be something based off his own life again, he's positive, he's learned his lesson, but it seems now that his creativity has run dry. He complains a lot, but Zitao doesn't grow annoyed with him, he normally just tugs Sehun close and kisses him. The distraction is greatly appreciated.

Eventually, Zitao forces him from his stuffy apartment. Makes Sehun go out with him to buy food that isn't instant, drags him out to sip coffee in quiet cafes, and convinces him to walk through parks in the spring. _Getting some sun is good for you,_ Zitao promises, and it is, he's gradually gaining color in his skin. _Socializing is good for you,_ Zitao whispers when Sehun has to talk to people, stumbling over his words and whining about it to Zitao later.

 

 

Zitao's at work when it hits him again the first time. The anxiety crawls from the dark spaces of his being and grow like sickly vines up and around his ribs, breaks them and crushes them into dust. And he doesn't know what to do and, really, he doesn't want to do anything, he wants the feeling to take him, consume him, drown him.

It's so close to dragging him down into the dark depths, so close to killing him when Zitao comes home and he sees it instantly. He gathers him up and pulls him into the bedroom, kisses him very gently on the mouth and then on the chin. _Come back to me,_ he coaxes and Sehun follows his voice to the shore, greedy for the affection and warmth it grants him.

Zitao brushes his hair out of his eyes, kisses between his eyebrows, quietly asks, "Are you alright?"

And Sehun can't answer that because he still isn't sure. He's not sure if he's alright or if he's going to jump off the fire escape the second he's left alone again. Instead of answering him, he asks, "Will you stay with me?"

Sehun's laying half on top of Zitao, tracing up from Zitao's shoulder to his clavicle with a gentle touch; Zitao shivers when Sehun slides his fingers up alongside his throat. Zitao takes Sehun's hand and threads their fingers together, pulls it away from his neck with a soft smile.

"Yes."

Sehun props himself up, so he can see Zitao's eyes, so he can look him in the face and hear the truth. "Will you stay with me always?"

"Always. No matter where you go, I'll follow you, just tell me where."

Sehun kisses him, a soft peck and then another with his lips parted and teeth pressing into Zitao's bottom lip.

 

 

The next time it finds him, Zitao's gone out with some friend for drinks. He calls Sehun before he goes, asks if Sehun minds if he stays out a little later with a friend. And he says no, but when he hears a woman yell an excited _yay!_ he feels a stab of jealousy and after he hangs up he wishes he had told Zitao how he was feeling.

But Zitao goes out and that's all there is to it.

It starts as a wispy nervousness in Sehun's chest. It starts as something that rattles around inside him, taunting him, reminding him that he's worthless and that he's nothing, but he pushes it down deep and pretends he doesn't hear it.

That seems to work for thirty minutes. But then it returns and he gets out of bed and paces the floor until he can calm himself again, until his heart is beating evenly and not jolting hard in his chest. A stronger anxiety wraps around his heart and he cries, his face pinched and sobs loud and muffled into his palms.

Then he calms again and he falls back into bed and forgets all about what he was worrying over, he forces himself to be calm. But it's still there, he can still feel it, and he cries silently because they can't handle being alone.

Zitao comes home no later than he had promised, but Sehun has retreated into the darkness and looks blankly at him as he walks quietly around the bedroom.

"You waited up?" Zitao grins, reaching out for him. But Sehun turns onto his side, his back facing Zitao.

"I couldn't sleep."

Zitao crawls into bed behind him and fits himself around Sehun's body, kisses the back of his neck and all of the emotions weigh down on Sehun and his shoulders break and it all floods forward. Curling up tighter, Sehun sobs and he doesn't even care that Zitao's trying to hold him, trying to comfort him because Sehun knows Zitao has done nothing wrong, but the feeling is still there.

"Sehun," Zitao whispers, all the affection he can muster spilling from his mouth.

"No, don't." But he does anyway, he asks why Sehun's crying and Sehun whimpers. "Because I'm so stupidly fragile. Because I told you to go out with your friend and then was jealous of them. Because I can't stand being alone."

Zitao doesn't say anything, but he lowers his head and kisses up the back of Sehun's neck and Sehun only cries harder. Warm hands slide up under his sweater and he lets it get pushed up, lets Zitao feel across his torso. Sehun lets Zitao move away from him, stay curled up tightly so he can cry into the sleeves of his sweater.

"Come here," Zitao says and Sehun doesn't move. But Zitao says it again and reaches over to hold his shoulder, to squeeze it comfortably.

When Sehun finally does sit up and crawl to the edge of the bed, Zitao takes the sweater and pulls it off of him, tosses it aside. Sehun doesn't say anything, doesn't ask him what he's doing when he starts taking his own clothes off. Sehun doesn't say anything, doesn't ask what he's doing when he presses him back on the bed, both of them left in their underwear.

Zitao brings both of Sehun's hands to his chest, smiles at him, kisses him. "This is all yours. This will be yours until you tell me you don't want it anymore."

And Sehun starts crying again, holding back sobs because Zitao is pulling him closer, kissing him.

"I'm yours. Only yours," Zitao whispers when he dips his head and kisses Sehun's neck, kissing his chest. Deep red stains his skin, marks him as Zitao's, and he presses on them until they hurt, until he can feel where Zitao's teeth had scraped across his skin. Zitao stops after he's left several hickies and he looks up at Sehun, "Are you mine?"

"Yes. Yes, yours, only yours."

 

 

They're both shirtless. They're wrapped around one another. They're almost evenly matched in skin tone now that Tao's managed to drag Sehun out for the summer, dragged him out to go swimming even though Sehun only laid out on a bathing chair and fell asleep.

Zitao is sitting in the chair behind him, his legs spread so there's room for Sehun to sit comfortably. He'd joined Sehun when he finally got around to writing his new story and he had pulled Sehun back from the screen, kissed the top of his shoulder until Sehun shook him off. Then he took up a fountain pen and began drawing down the span of Sehun's bare back.

It was distracting, but he knew it would look beautiful when Zitao was done with it, so he threw himself into his writing and allowed Zitao to draw on his back.

Now he's working down Sehun's shoulder, arched away from Sehun's back so he doesn't smudge the ink.

When Sehun finally takes a break, he turns and tries to see what Zitao had been drawing down his back, but he can hardly see more than a few thick lines. "What did you draw?"

"I drew a wolf," he says simply, going back to work and drawing little lines across Sehun's skin that tickle slightly. "Will you let me take pictures of it when it's done? I'll redraw it for a sample."

"Of course you can. Maybe if I like it enough I'll let you draw it permanently." It's slightly teasing, but Zitao stops and he looks around Sehun's shoulder, grinning.

"Really?"

"Of course."

Zitao leans in and kisses him. "I love you."

Something bursts in Sehun's chest and he pulls Zitao in for another kiss, deeper and hungrier.

"I love you too."

 

 

Sehun does get the tattoo. Although it's smaller and the full body of the wolf and it's placed atop his heart. Later, when the lines have finished healing, he goes back to the shop and Zitao holds his hand as he has bright colors tattooed across the body of the wolf.

Zitao isn't anything like Lu Han. Lu Han had only brought new shades of grey and quiet shades of red and blue into Sehun's life, but Zitao brought him all the colors and more, more than he knew he existed, and colored him in. And Sehun couldn't be happier.


End file.
